The FSB and the Ministry of Internal Affairs will check officials and security officials of Dagestan

After the Mayor of Makhachkala was arrested in Dagestan, MVD and FSB officers from Moscow came to Moscow to investigate regional officials and law enforcement agencies, sources told RBC in law enforcement agencies.

In Makhachkala, investigators from the central apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Federal Security Service arrived from Moscow, as well as employees of the Prosecutor General's Office. This was told by a source in the central apparatus of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and confirmed by the interlocutor in the FSB. Moscow security forces are gathering evidence against regional officials, as well as representatives of the Interior Ministry and the prosecutor's office, sources said.

"For a long time, law enforcement agencies received information about the facts of corruption, abuse of official authority and bribery in the region," the source told RBC in the Interior Ministry. These appeals, he said, became an occasion for conducting pre-investigation checks.

The siloviki conduct inspections against high-ranking officials of the region, including republican ministers and mayors, RBC confirmed two sources close to Dagestan's leadership.

RBC sent a request to the FSB, the Interior Ministry and the Prosecutor General's Office.

The arrest of the mayor

Investigative actions of Moscow siloviki were preceded by the detention of the Mayor of Makhachkala Musa Musayev, who is suspected of abuse of office. The mayor of the city was detained on January 19 in the framework of the criminal case, which was initiated by the investigative bodies of the Investigative Committee for the Republic of Dagestan. The investigation found out that Musayev illegally signed a resolution on granting a land plot worth 1.1 million rubles to the ownership of the Arsk brick plant (OJSC ASPK). Then the searches were held in the administration of Makhachkala, as well as in the mayor's house. During the search of the siloviki, the doors of the office of Deputy Mayor Kurban Kurbanov, who oversees the issues of capital construction in the city, broke open.

"Musayev was a man of the prime minister of Dagestan Abdusamad Hamidov, so we can consider that this [the arrest of the mayor] is a blow to the premiere," RBC told a source close to the leadership of Dagestan. Hamidov in the 1990's headed the board of Makhachkala commercial bank "Elbin". In the same structure, from 1993 to 1999, Musaev worked as head of the monetary and economic department.

A week before the arrest of the mayor, the head of the republic, Vladimir Vasilyev, reported that a special group from Moscow was arriving in Dagestan. According to Vasiliev, investigators of the Ministry of Internal Affairs and representatives of the prosecutor's office were interested in observing the requirements of land, town planning and environmental legislation, the audit was initiated by the Prosecutor General of Russia Yuri Chaika.

The criminal case against the mayor of Makhachkala was initiated three months after the republican leadership changed in Dagestan. The head of Dagestan was appointed Vladimir Vasilyev - ex-deputy secretary of the Security Council, retired colonel-general of the police. Previously, Vasilyev was a State Duma deputy from the fourth to the seventh convocation, and also served as vice speaker of the lower house.